Friday, March 31, 2006

Tory Lenders: Big Deal About Nothing

These are the people who have lent the Conservative Party money. Big deal. To my knowledge not a single one of these has been nominated for an honour since they loaned the money. And that's the difference between this list and Labour's.

Surely this is the worst thing for the Tories to do?The fact that the indentities of those individuals who lent money but who have since been repaid are being kept secret just adds fuel to the fire.

Who are the people who have been repaid?When were they repaid? Yesterday to keep them off today's list?Are any of them foreign doners?Have any of them been nominated for an honour since they loaned the money?

This is going to run and run and kill Cameron.

My huge respect for Cameron as a strategic & tactical thinker has taken a knock. An A-Level politics student could tell you this was a stupid move.

Presumably he's going to Downing St. on Monday to do a deal to kill the story. I hope Blair sticks the knife in.

It's a bit hard for Blair to stick the knife in as he's the one actually under criminal investigation for secretly soliciting funds outside the normal structures of the Labour Party - some mad Labour MP forces the police to carry out a non-investigation into the money received by the tories which will lead to the astounding conclusion there's nothing to find out. Ruth Turner though being paid by the tax payer to raise money for Labour - if that's not corrupt I don't know what is

Top marks though to media lefties for turning a story that could lead to Labour politicians being jailed into one about Cameron

It's an interesting point of view that repaying a loan, thus proving it to have been a loan rather than a way of accepting a donation you'd rather not have to declare (or is possibly not legally acceptable as a donation under PPERA 2000), makes you corrupt.

'the left will scream about it'?You must be joking, every paper worth it's salt will now have a team of journalists trying to find out who the secret lenders were and why the money was paid back sharpish. This has simply thrown more fuel on to the fire.